Glitch causes $14,000 Uber ride
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}Uber has banned a right-wing activist after she questioned on Twitter why the company is "hiring Islamic terrorists." (REUTERS/Sergio Perez)
A Toronto man was forced to shell out more than $14,400 for a 5-mile Uber ride, when a glitch in surge pricing caused his bill to skyrocket.
The passenger posted an image of the overblown receipt — which notes his trip took just 21 minutes — under the Instagram handle Votethehish on Friday.
It shows he was charged $18,518.50 in Canadian cash when the ride should have cost between $12 and $16, Slate.com reported.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}“Thanks for choosing Uber,” wrote his driver, whose name was listed as Hisham.
Uber at first refused to give him a refund, the website reported.
But his pal, Emily Kannard, slammed the breaks on that, by calling the company out on Twitter.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}“My friend was charged 18K for a 20 Min ride (!), and they are sticking to it. What in the world??? This is insane!” she Tweeted at the company on Saturday.
Uber later admitted the mistake and refunded his cash.
“There was an error here and it has been resolved,” Uber said in a statement to Slate.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}“We have provided a full refund to this rider and apologized to him for this experience. We have safeguards in place to help prevent something like this from happening, and we are working to understand how this occurred.”
This story originally appeared in the New York Post.